This Kiss
by So-Lovely-Dovey
Summary: A collision. A walk. A kiss. It seems so simple, but why is everything so complicated? PippinDiamond.


**_Disclaimers_**: Pippin, Diamond, and anything else Lord of the Rings belong to Tolkien, New Line Cinema, etc. I'm just a poor teenager with random plot bunnies. Carrot, anyone? 

**Author's Note**: 

Pippin/Diamond. One shot. I got the idea of a Pippin fic from my friend, Rohwen, the Pip addict. I hope you guys enjoy it, and please review! Make me very happy, you will. :) 

**This Kiss**

Pippin grumbled to himself and continued to kick rocks with his feet as he walked down the lane. Embarrassment was his companion at the moment. Why did he have to apologize? It's not like he did anything too horrible. 

_'You only kissed her while you were drunk, walked her half way home, then fell on top of her when you passed out,'_ said a little voice in the back of his head. 

'Exactly. It could have been worse,' he countered then shook his head. 'Darn, who am I kidding? What was I thinking last night? I've been drunk many times and I don't think I ever have embarrassed myself this bad before.' he ran a hand through his hair. 'I've lost it. I can't believe I've resorted to talking to myself.' 

But what if she never wanted to see him again? But he had to apologize in person, who could forgive a note? Then again, who ever said that she would forgive him even if he did apologize in person? And as he looked back on it, he was having a harder and harder time trying to blame all his actions on the drinks (well, all except the passing out part.) This was getting all too much for his poor hobbit emotions to handle. 

He soon found himself standing in front of so mentioned emotional stresser's hobbit hole. It was small, but cozy, with a small garden out front and little fence surrounding their land. He made his way up the walkway and stood before the round front door for many moments, debating either to just gather up the courage and knock, or just run away before he was noticed. He lifted up his hand to knock a few times but then decided to lower it back down again. 

"Come on, Took! You can do this," he coached himself. "You had the bravery to fight orcs yet you can't even find any to give a lass an apology?" Before he could stop himself again, he rapped his knuckles against the door a few times. He heard bustling going on inside the hole, then the door opened to reveal an older hobbit woman a few seconds later. She tucked a flyaway strand of light curly hair back behind her pointed ear, and fiddled with the tie of her apron. 

"Hullo!" she greeted brightly, eying him up and down with a curious gaze, "What can I be helpin' you with?" 

Pippin's mouth had gone dry and he was having difficulty finding his voice, never mind actually using it. He rubbed the back if his head in a nervous habit. Why the heck was he here again? Apology. That's it. 

"Um, can I I see... erm, talk-" he sighed and shut his eyes tight. "Is Diamond home?" he asked rather shakily. The woman nodded slowly with a hint of a knowing smile tugging at her lips. 

"Wait right here, I'll go get her for you," she replied and shut the door gently. 

Diamond was sitting on her bed attempting to read. Attempting was the key word there. She couldn't get herself engrossed in the story like she normally could. Her mind kept on drifting off to the events of previous evening. How she even ended up being in his company was beyond her. She couldn't stand him before he had left on that journey and before the Ruffians had taken over the Shire. Yet, now he seemed different... somehow. She couldn't put her finger on it. He was still the playful, curious prankster at heart, and probably forever will be, but now he was... changed. Or at least she had thought. 

_Diamond was taking an evening stroll and her feet seemed to take her to the center of town on their own accord. The square was quiet, and the air was crisp; fall's chill was pleasant and the leaves of the trees were shades of many different beautiful colors. She just loved this time of year. She danced around the square in circles, her arms raised above her head, and her laughter filled the air. She must have looked foolish, nothing like the proper lady should, but how a little child would. Before Diamond even had the slightest clue someone was there, she ran into somebody mid-twirl and the both of them fell to the ground in a heap. _

Diamond ended up on the bottom somehow, and whoever she knocked over was sprawled out on top of her, and she noticed that they smelt of pipe weed and had ale on their breath, giving her the hint that they had just come out of the Green Dragon after a few drinks. She opened her eyes to see a pair of light brown ones looking right back. 

"Why, hello!" she heard Pippin say and she felt his voice rumble in his chest. "What a surprise this is! It's not every day I get swept of my feet by a lovely lass; it's usually the other way around!" he chuckled. 

Diamond barely was able to resist the urge to roll her eyes. Now she was sure he was drunk. Under normal circumstances, he knew that she would rather kiss a llama than have anything to do with him. But if that was so true, how come she was getting extremely nervous and was conscious of the fact that her heart was beating wildly with his face so close to hers? "I'm terribly sorry, Peregrin, I wasn't watching where I was going," Diamond mumbled. 

Pippin gave her a lopsided grin. "You apologize like I minded! Quite the contrary! I meant what I said before." Much to her surprise, he brushed a strand of her light blond hair that had fallen out of it's tie off her cheek and tucked it back behind her ear. "Now, I don't know about you, but it's getting late and I have to be getting home." 

He got up to his feet and held out a hand to help her up. She gave him a shy, "Thanks," and went back toward the path that led back to her home without a second glance at him. His actions confused her, and what scared and confused Diamond even more was how she reacted to them. But alas, her muddled thoughts wouldn't be left alone. 

"Wait up!" Pippin called and she turned around puzzled to see him running to catch up to her. This was definitely not the Took she knew. 

"Are you following me, Mister Took?" she accused. 

Pippin gave her a confused glance. "No," he said in response. "To get home I have to go down this way as well. I'd figured that you wouldn't have wanted to walk alone if you needn't had to." Her mouth formed a silent "O" and Diamond bit her lip to keep in any remarks she had the urge to say about wanting to be left alone. Perhaps she could give him a shot. They were never close, sure, and she hadn't really liked him much, but he had never been mean to her. She couldn't think of a good reason to tell him that he couldn't walk with her. 

"Alright... " she gave in slowly. Pipped beamed. They walked along in silence for a few moments. Diamond stole a glance at Pippin out of the corner of her eye. Yes, something was definitely different about this hobbit. And she was determined to find out what. She had noticed the change when he had come back from that mysterious journey that he, Merry Brandybuck, Frodo Baggins, and Sam Gamgee had gone on the previous year. She hadn't just seen it in Pippin, she had seen it in all four of them. Where had they gone? What had happened? She couldn't understand. What had they gone through to change them so much? The four of them weren't the same hobbits that they once were. 

"Are you alright?" Pippin asked, the concern could be heard in his voice. Diamond snapped out of her train of thoughts. "You looked gone for a second there." 

"What? Oh, um... yes," she replied. "I was just thinking... wondering... " she trailed off and Pippin gave her a nod to urge her on, "Well, about last year. Where had the four of you gone? You've been changed, the lot of you. For good or for worse I'm not certain, but you're not the same hobbit you use to be, Pip." 

Pippin stopped walking and looked Diamond in the eyes. "That's quite a long story that if I was going to tell you, it would probably be best to do so another day. Preferably when my head isn't pounding so. I've gone and had too much drink again, I'm afraid. Not good for one's system, and certainly not good for telling a dark story such as that." By what he had said, Diamond knew what had happened must have been nothing good. She wanted to question further, but decided against it. There must have been a good reason for him not wanting to talk about it. So, dejectedly, she nodded in understanding. 

They continued walking again, the chilly autumn air finally getting to her and she shivered involuntarily. Pippin wrapped an arm around her shoulder, surprising her once again that evening. She did the best she could to keep her mind off of the heat that was radiating from his body, but to no avail. She breathed in his scent; an oddly comforting mixture pipe weed and cotton. She couldn't help but sigh and lean her head on his shoulder. What was wrong with her? Surely she should have pushed him away before now. But she found she couldn't move from the position her was in with her head on his comfortable shoulder. It somehow just felt right_. They walked along, the moon a bright light in the midnight hours. Pippin broke the silence. _

"When we came back and found those orcs in the Shire, we were all worried that our lives and our home was gone forever. We were so afraid that we had taken our journey home with us." Diamond waited a moment, unsure of how to reply to that, but Pippin continued on. "You know, I was always wondering how things were doing here when we were gone. My thoughts were always brought back to you for some reason, especially in Gondor during my time serving the Steward. Dunno why. It's not like we ever spent much time together. Perhaps it was that I needed something pretty and a reminder of home in the whole ugliness and selfishness that surrounded me." 

She flushed at that comment and couldn't believe he actually said that. Pippin continued to ramble on, but she really wasn't paying much attention. Normally, had he said that, she would have... well, now that she thought about it, she wasn't sure what she normally would have done. He had never spoken to her like this before. What confused her the most wasn't really the fact that he was, but how she felt about it. 

They had come up the lane to her hole, right outside the gate in the fence. She moved away to turn and face him, but before she knew it was coming, he had lowered his lips to hers. It tasted way too much like ale for her liking, with a tint of pipe weed mixed in his breath. And the fact that this was only happening due to the fact that he was drunk wasn't exactly the most appealing thought, either. 

She tried to pull away, but found that she couldn't; Pippin was wrapping his arms quickly around her and for good reason - he was going down. Her eyes widened in shock as realization hit, but by then it was too late. The pair had toppled over and Diamond was underneath Pippin for the second time that evening. 

Diamond grumbled to herself and she worked her way out from under the unconscious hobbit lad. 'That's great, Diamond ole girl. You just had to be nice to the idiot and look where it's gotten you.'_ She stood up and brushed the dirt off her dress, wondering what she would do now. The windows in her home were dark; her mother had probably gone off to bed a while ago. _

She looked back down at Pip with a sigh as another voice said in the back of her head, 'An idiot he may be, but a cute idiot at that.'_ She shook her head, a blush rising on her cheeks at the thought. She picked him up underneath the arms and carried him with his feet dragging into her hole as silently as she could._

"Diamond!" Her mother's voice brought her back from the memory. She placed the bookmark back in the book (the same page it was on before she sat down to read) as her mother cracked the door open to her room and poked her head inside. "You have a visitor," she said with a smile on her face. She left as quickly as she came and Diamond hopped off her bed to follow after her. 

"You're not going to tell me who it is at the door, are you?" 

Her mother shook her head in response and started humming to herself, never looking away from the pot of stew she was stirring. Diamond could have sworn that she seemed extremely pleased with something. With a heavy sigh of defeat, she dragged herself to the door and opened it to find the very cute (and nervous) idiot waiting outside. _'Great,'_ she thought sarcastically. 

"Er... hi," he said slowly, "Can I talk to you?" 

Diamond had been expecting and dreading this, but nodded. How awkward will this be? 

"Diamond, honey, remember to ask him back here for supper," her mother called from the kitchen. _'This just keeps getting better and better, doesn't it? Thanks, mum.'_ She closed the front door behind her and turned her attention over to the hobbit in front of her. 

"I'm sorry about last night... " Pippin started. 

"For the whole being drunk incident or leaving at the crack of dawn this morning before I woke and nearly giving me a heart attack because of it?" 

Pip shifted uncomfortably on his feet. "Both. I was afraid of what you thought of me after last night. Still am, actually. Especially since it wasn't all the ale's doing like your probably thinking." Diamond raised an eyebrow at the comment. "What, you don't believe me?" His voice held a tinge of hurt, and Diamond noticed that his warm brown eyes did also as he stepped closer to her. 

"I don't know what to believe, Mister Took," she replied truthfully. He gave her another lopsided grin, not unlike the one he gave her the previous evening, and she couldn't help but think that it was adorable. 

"Can I start over, then?" he asked. Diamond gave him a questioning glance, unsure of what he meant; but found his lips on hers once more before she could ask. 


End file.
